Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille is on Wednesday expected to announce further plans to deal with the city’s water shortage.

The “Water Resilience Plan”, which will be tabled in the city council, is expected to include increased measures to avoid acute water shortages.

A chief resilience officer had been appointed, the city said in a statement.

It said the drought in the province had reached its most critical level to date. Residents were urged to spend no more than two minutes in the shower, to only flush the toilet “when absolutely necessary” and to use water only for essential activities.

The mayoral committee had recommended a blanket ban on all irrigation, filling of pools, and washing of cars with drinking water.

Dam storage levels were now at 19.7% and consumption levels were still too high.

“With the last 10% of a dam’s water mostly not being useable, dam levels are effectively at 9.7%. Disappointingly, consumption remains at 666 million litres, which is above the consumption target of 600 million litres per day,” the city said.

Residents were asked to work towards a consumption target of less than 100 litres per person, per day.

“One shower and five flushes of an average-sized toilet will push a person over their daily allowance, and this is not even taking into account other necessities such as drinking, cooking, and washing of clothes and dishes,” the city said.